


WHO KNEW WHAT OTHERS DIED TO PROVE

by ivorygates



Category: Cammie'verse - Fandom, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Bleak, Daniverse, Dark, F/F, Girl!Cameron Mitchell, Girl!Daniel, Implied Sexual Content, Implied Torture, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-31
Updated: 2009-07-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 09:05:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And she has no gods and doesn't pray, but each night Dani goes to sleep with words somewhere between prayer and curse and demand cycling endlessly through her mind: <em>If we don't find her -- if she's hurt -- just let me be strong enough not to show mercy.  Just let me be strong enough to treat them the way they treated her.</em></p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>#</p>
</div><p>This story is the final point on the Gender Fliparound Compass for "Too True To Say Goodbye To You".  The original story was Cam/Teal'c/Daniel, and then Kazbaby wrote a Cammie snippet set in that 'verse, and Elliemurasaki weighed in with "Lonely is a Cold Hard Fact", the <em>Cammie</em>/Teal'c/Daniel version, so here's the Cammie/Dani/Teal'c version.</p><p>I totally blame Kazbaby for the fact that any of this exists.  Also?  The line about General Landry's balls is totally Kazbaby's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	WHO KNEW WHAT OTHERS DIED TO PROVE

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [TOO TRUE TO SAY GOODBYE TO YOU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/658158) by [ivorygates](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates). 



David, so the legend says, slew Gath's champion and won a kingdom with five smooth stones. Gravesites are covered -- or at least adorned -- with stones throughout the entire Near East. It's fitting: The story of David and Goliath is remembered, told, re-figured today. Nobody much remembers Gath, although it was one of the five Cities of the Plain, the coastal trading partners of the vast and wealthy Cretan Empire. Which is something else nobody much remembers these days, actually.

Five stones brought down an empire.

Five stones are enough to change her life forever.  
  
One:

Two and a half weeks ago Cammie went off on an undercover mission to their very dear friends, the Lucian Alliance. Her face -- all their faces, for values of "them" being equal to "SG-1" -- are known to the Alliance, but thanks to the turbo-charged version of the Reole drug and a new delivery system, General Landry and the IOA thought Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell had the chance to slip in (down at the bottom of the Alliance hierarchy) and work her way in and up to Kefflin. According to the IOA they really need to get their hands on Kefflin; Dani knows it's for political reasons; the Lucians are the major producers of tretonin. The Jaffa want it; the Jaffa have the _Goa'uld_ space fleet; Earth wants that.

She told Cammie not to do it. She told Cammie it was too risky. Cammie laughed and kissed her on the forehead and pointed out that there were these little things called "orders" that she sometimes followed, and that taking out that sumbitch Kefflin was a good idea any day of the week.

And now they -- she and Teal'c and Sam and Nate Reynolds and General Landry -- are sitting around the conference room table watching a recording (a holographic playback from a _vo'cuum_ , actually; the Lucians use _Goa'uld_ technology just like everyone else Out There). A Lucian middleman named Benath delivered it to SG-3. The first few seconds of the playback are an Alliance middleman -- no name given, not Kefflin -- saying that Cammie's dead and this is proof. All it proves is that they have her and they know who she is. Teal'c stops the playback after twenty minutes. There's no point in watching more.

"We have to get her back." The room seems cold and distant. She can't feel the chair at her back; the pen in her hands. "Recall all the offworld teams for the search. I can--"

"Dr. Jackson." General Landry's trying for sympathetic, but he's always been awkward around her. "Colonel Mitchell is dead." He gestures in the direction of the _vo'cuum_.

"If she was dead, the Alliance would have sent proof." It would have sent them her head: that's their method of operation; the General should know that. "We need to find her. Now."

"We don't even know where she is," General Landry points out. "I appreciate your feelings. I'll circulate a memo to the Teams telling them to keep a eye out for any information when they're offworld. But you need to understand I can't authorize committing the full resources of this command to an operation with so little possibility of success. I'm sorry."

He means the IOA won't let him commit the SGC's resources. She gets to her feet, picking up the _vo'cuum_. "If anyone needs me, I'll be in my office transferring this to tape. There might be some clues here we can use to target a search."

"Dr. Jackson," General Landry says sharply. He isn't finished here yet.

"Do you ever miss your balls, General?" she asks evenly. "Do you think the IOA will give them back when you move to another command?"

Landry gapes, Nate's suddenly been struck conveniently deaf, Teal'c's impassive. Only Sam looks shocked and stunned, as if Dani's just slapped her.

Sam knows what Dani's lost.

Two:

The _vo'cuum_ , hard and cold and silver, was the first stone. The second is a fist in a bar on an alien planet. It comes six weeks later, at the end of a long trail of false leads and dead ends. Dani's tried not to think about what will be waiting for her back on Earth when she goes back again. At least Teal'c doesn't have to go back if he doesn't want to, but Cammie will need medical care; she'll want to go home to her family. So Dani will take her home (she's pretty sure that Jack will save her from anything worse than just being fired, as long as she brings the _tel'tak_ back -- she wouldn't have needed to steal it in the first place if General Landry had just ... been General Hammond).

And then, in a heartbeat _(in a bar)_ , everything changes.

She supposes that she and Teal'c look like a _(former)_ First Prime and a _(former) lo'tar_ traveling together; well, Teal'c _is_ a _(former)_ First Prime and she's impersonated a _lo'tar_ with reasonable success. At least it means people are willing to talk to them. _(It certainly gives her a different view of the universe than she ever got as a member of SG-1.)_

On a world called Leutmand they hear stories. Nothing they hear makes much sense _(at least as it's reported to them)_ but the local authorities identify Cammie from the holograph Dani shows them. _(Alive, Cammie's alive.)_

The locals say Cammie stole a Death Glider and escaped in it. The locals don't bother to mention it had a damaged engine. A stroke of luck for the two of them _(because it makes it easier to follow)_ , but Dani's terrified that it will just explode somewhere out in space and she'll never see Cammie again.

_"Look, honeybaby, you come up with a better way to get next to these guys, I'm all ears."_

Her argument -- her _last_ argument -- with Cammie plays over and over in her mind on all those nights when she can't sleep, mixed with the sounds and images from the interrogation session. She downloaded it to her laptop. She has it with her. She plays it constantly, burning the images into her eyes, her mind, her heart. It makes the things she has to do as she hunts for Cammie easier.

_"Why don't you tell us what your mission was, Colonel?"_

_"Zantia. M'name. Zantia."_

Moans and blood and stifled gasps. The sounds of beatings. The laughter of Aliance thugs.

_"Zantia. M'Zantia. Zantia."_

And she has no gods and doesn't pray, but each night Dani goes to sleep with words somewhere between prayer and curse and demand cycling endlessly through her mind: _If we don't find her -- if she's hurt -- just let me be strong enough not to show mercy. Just let me be strong enough to treat them the way they treated her._

#

They track the Death Glider to a planet that Teal'c says is called Inolfre. It's crashed in the middle of the desert, its skid-marks have left a long white scar on the pale clay.

There's no body inside. No blood on the wreckage. The tracks Teal'c finds _(invisible to her)_ head away from the Stargate, and Teal'c says the sun is too harsh for humans to survive long exposure, but there's a little cluster of buildings about thirty kliks from the Stargate: a mining outpost. They talk to a man there called Treca. He says he hasn't seen anybody who looks like Cammie. They both think he's lying.

But if she's here _(oh god, please let her be here, alive, safe)_ there's nowhere else she can be, and the place will wake up when the sun goes down. They go back to the _tel'tak_ to wait for night. Dani talks Teal'c into letting her go back alone. Maybe Treca -- or someone else -- will talk to her without a gold-marked Jaffa Warrior hovering over her shoulder.

It's night on Inolfre when Dani walks into the bar again. And oh, Cammie's there. Dressed all in gleaming black leather, from her high boots to her glove-tight pants to her long swinging coat. Only the shirt, hanging open over the arrogant swell of her breasts, is white. Cammie's eyes are bright and blue and cold, and Cammie's mocking smile is cold _(Cammie was always so warm)_ , and she moves toward Dani with a feline swagger _(confident, predatory)_ that Dani doesn't understand until too late.

Cammie doesn't recognize her.

Cammie tries to kill her.

Cammie doesn't know who she is. She doesn't think she's Underboss Westi's courier Zantia, either. Once they've captured her, they keep her sedated (Teal'c insists) while they backtrail her. It isn't actually that hard to pick up Harfin. Teal'c says he's just going to ask Harfin some questions. Dani knows the truth. She doesn't care _(she would have, once)_. She sits beside Cammie in the cargo compartment of the _tel'tak_. Cammie is drugged unconscious and shackled hand and foot. Even in sleep she doesn't look like Cammie Mitchell.

They know so little about the effects of the Reole drug.

#

Three:

The third stone isn't tangible, but it's hard and cold all the same. The third stone is information.

When he comes back from his talk with Harfin _(Dani knows it wasn't just talking; she knows she's glad)_ , Teal'c tells her that Harfin didn't know anything about a Reole drug. Harfin knew about the gloves Cammie was wearing to conceal the delivery mechanism, but he thought they were to fool a print- and genescan. Harfin told Teal'c everything he used. And that's the third stone that shatters her world. None of those drugs, none of that trauma would have _(should have)_ produced amnesia. Or if they did, if they had, it should have worn off _(somewhat, a little, surely Cammie would remember her)_ by now.

"What do we do? What do we do?" she asks, knowing she sounds desperate. For the last two months _(since Cammie kissed her goodbye at their apartment door, since Cammie walked through the Stargate)_ , all Dani's been thinking about is _getting Cammie back_. And getting just her body back isn't enough.

"Perhaps time and the sight of familiar things will assist Colonel Mitchell in recovering her memory," Teal'c says, and it isn't quite a lie but Dani knows he doesn't believe it.

#

Four:

The fourth stone is time and hate. Seven days ... and a lifetime.

Teal'c's idea of a good place to hide _(and wait, and hope)_ is P4X-374, a rotting _Goa'uld_ pleasure palace by a cold gray sea. It's the place that killed SG-5 and nearly killed her and Sam and Jack. But the holographic hookah's been permanently disabled, and SG-13 left behind plenty of supplies when they finished studying the place (while Jack was head of the SGC it was SOP to leave caches of supplies scattered all over the galaxy Just In Case -- which they've merrily looted -- General Landry does things differently). Cammie spends almost another day sleeping off the drugs they were keeping her on, and while she's unconscious, Dani undresses her (there are no new scars, but Dani knows the Alliance has a sarcophagus), and leaves her a set of BDUs, hoping familiar clothing will jog her memory. While Cammie sleeps, Dani hopes _(wishing she believed in gods, wishing she could pray)_ that she'll wake up as _her_ again.

Knowing that the universe has never answered her prayers, spoken or unspoken.

And when Cammie wakes up, she's still the hard-eyed hostile stranger she was on Inolfre. Neither her SGC uniform nor the explanations Dani and Teal'c make have any effect on Cammie's amnesia. Cammie doesn't remember them.

Cammie doesn't remember _her_.

She refuses to answer to her name. She refuses to believe their story. She paces the palace like a caged leopard. If Teal'c hadn't taken the control crystals out of the DHD she'd already be long-gone, and as it is, she still tries it at least once a day, when she's sure they aren't looking. She sleeps in a different room every night.

She's a stranger.

Dani thought she'd cried all her tears already. Six weeks of re-watching the images the Alliance sent them as she and Teal'c searched, knowing it was only a small part of what they'd done to Cammie, not knowing if they'd find her, find her alive, find her sane. She's never been a soldier, never wanted to kill, but during all the long weeks of searching she's watched the images on the _vo'cuum_ , searching for the strength to make that transformation. Begging for one gift from a universe to which she's given so much: _Let me be strong enough not to show mercy. Let me be strong enough to treat them the way they treated her._

And now they've found her. And Cammie Mitchell's alive. And Cammie Mitchell's dead. And the hideous paradox makes her weep. The tears burn like acid and she walks along the stony beach at night for hours so that the sound of her grief will be drowned in the sound of the surf, so that when morning comes she can look at the woman who is no longer Cammie and appear calm and unmoved. _Just let me be strong enough not to show mercy._

There is no mercy anywhere.

They can't take Cammie home in this condition. She isn't Colonel Mitchell. She isn't _Cammie_ Mitchell. She's a hostile, suspicious, paranoid _alien_ with six weeks' worth of memories, none of them of Earth. Even if Dani did an end-run around General Landry and went straight to Jack _(begging him to_ fix things _the way Jack always could)_ , she knows he'd have to make the same decision General Landry would (he'd hate it more, but it's still the only one there is): treat Cammie as if her condition is a nervous breakdown or some other beyond-the-Gate-caused impairment and lock her up. For national security. For the good of Earth. Maybe even for her own safety.

Dani already knows doing something like that would kill this woman-who-isn't-Cammie more quickly than a bullet to the head.

And the days pass _(seven days)_ , and relief that they've found her has turned to grief that she's so badly injured and then to fear that she'll never recover and at last to hate for the stranger who's _taken Cammie's place._

On the seventh morning Teal'c says he's going to make a supply run. Dani wishes she could go with him, but Cammie _(that woman isn't Cammie)_ would probably flip out if she found them both gone. If she flips out anyway ... well, Dani probably still knows the palace better than she does. They can play Hide and Go Seek until Teal'c gets back. In fact, that sounds like a pretty good plan anyway. She takes her coffee out onto the balcony. Gray sky, gray water, gray future.

When Cameron Mitchell walked into Stargate Command on that bright September morning, Jack was in Washington, Teal'c was on Dakara, Sam was at Area 51, and Dani had just been reassigned (by the SGC's new overlord, Henry P. Landry) to a desk. She'd been inches and minutes away from handing in her resignation and hopping the next ship bound for Atlantis, and Cammie said 'stay', and she hadn't had the least notion of what she was saying 'yes' to when she'd said 'yes', but it had been everything she'd given up dreaming of.

"Teal'c's making a supply run," she says, when she hears the scrape of boot-sole against stone behind her _(the woman-who-isn't-Cammie-any-more never makes noise except when she wants to be heard)_. "We're running low on supplies."

"You didn't expect to be here this long," not-Cammie says. _(Every time she speaks it hurts again, because Dani can't hear the South in her voice any longer, the honey-sweet sound of sunshine and laughter.)_

"No." She won't turn around, won't look. Maybe if she doesn't, not-Cammie will leave her alone.

"For somebody that hates my guts, you went to a lot of trouble to get your hands on me," not-Cammie says.

It's too much. Dani laughs _(harsh and despairing, like the sound of the seabirds this world doesn't have)_ and throws her metal cup as far as she can. It hits the water. "Here's the thing," she says, not turning around. "Once upon a time there was a woman named Cameron Mitchell. I was in love with her. I never got a chance to tell her. I'm probably never would have told her, because -- you might enjoy this part -- I'm pretty sure she wasn't in love with me."

There's silence behind her, but the stranger wearing Cammie's face hasn't left. "Huh," she says after a moment, just sounding vaguely surprised. "It's really gotta suck to be you."

"You have no idea," Dani says evenly.

"So -- what? You want me to feel sorry for you because you lost your girlfriend? Get another one. You got any idea what it's like to wake up one morning and not even know who you are?"

Dani remembers the agonizing emptiness of absence-of-self, absence of "I". The knives that Ba'al had used had made her scream, but the absence of memory, of _name_ had made her cry. "We told you who you are."

"Cameron Mitchell, SG-1, SGC, Tau'ri, Earth." The woman sing-songs the syllables as if they're meaningless, and Dani knows that to her, they are. "Talk is cheap."

To feel hatred is to at least feel _something,_ and she's been desperate to feel something beyond blank nothingness of _just holding on_ for weeks. She could never hate Cammie, and if she can hate this woman, then this woman isn't Cammie, so it's all right. This woman isn't Cammie, and Cammie is dead, and Dani can go on to do what she planned to do during all those aching nights she spent staring into the dark in her bunk on the _tel'tak_. She can take revenge. She turns around and leans back against the railing, smiling a bright and angry smile up at the stranger in the BDUs that don't belong to her.

"Would you prefer pictures? Because I've got pictures. I kept them. I _saved_ them."

Not-Cammie is gazing down at her, half angry, half puzzled. She and Teal'c have both avoided getting physical with Cammie _(this isn't Cammie)_ because _(it's gone without saying)_ they don't want to reinforce the false persona Cammie's built up since the loss of her memories. But Dani knows it doesn't matter. It's not as if _Cammie_ is _(still)_ under there fighting to get out. Cammie's dead. Dani shoves not-Cammie aside and stalks back into the palace.

Her laptop is right where she left it. Jack or Sam or even Vala would have taken it away from her once they knew what she had on it, but the Jaffa understand about revenge. She usually listens to the file with her earbuds in -- or even with the sound completely muted; she's memorized every second of it by now -- but today she turns the sound all the way up.

_"Why don't you tell us what your mission was, Colonel?"_

The audio track is distorted by the volume. It bounces off the walls, stirring echoes.

_"Tell us who you are! We know you aren't Zantia! Sorfir just brought in her head!"_

Not-Cammie followed her. Dani knew she would. "Welcome to the last moments of your life, Colonel Cameron Mitchell!" she calls out mock-gaily, her voice rising over the sounds on the screen. A beating. Moans.

_"Tell us what your mission was, Colonel!"_

Not-Cammie stares at the computer screen, transfixed. Teal'c had suggested showing her photographs of herself on Earth -- Dani has gigs of them stored on this laptop; it's her personal one, not her SGC one -- and Dani kept saying no, it was too dangerous. This is an order of magnitude worse, but Dani doesn't care about consequences now.

"That isn't me," not-Cammie says, her voice rough with horror.

"Surprise," Dani answers derisively.

 _"That is not me!"_ Not-Cammie lunges for the laptop and grabs it by the lid. She pivots around and swings it at the doorframe as if she's batting a home run. There's a sudden silence as the lid tears free in her hands and the computer bounces back from the impact and skitters across the floor. She doesn't stay to try to destroy it further. She runs.

Dani stands in the middle of the room until the sound of not-Cammie's running footsteps dies away. Then she picks up the body of the laptop and brings it over to the table, and finds a knife she can use to pry the case open, and finishes taking it completely apart.

#

Five:

The fifth stone is truth, and a name.

She doesn't know where not-Cammie is when Teal'c comes back _(maybe she's climbed up on the palace roof and_ jumped off _that'd be nice)_ and Teal'c doesn't say. He doesn't have any trouble finding _her_ , of course, even though she's gone and found the darkest emptiest remotest place in this entire low-rent Xanadu to sit and contemplate bangs and whimpers and how the world ends.

Tealc's about ninety seconds into the speech that starts "I have come to a decision, Danielle Jackson," when Dani realizes that the decision he's come to is to go off on a Grand Tour of the galaxy with whoever-it-is that not-Cammie has decided she's going to be.

"You can't be serious," she says in slow horror.

He is, though. They can't take not-Cammie home (they can, but they won't, _she_ won't, even now). They can't stash her somewhere safe (damned few of those places in the galaxy that exists now), because she won't stay anywhere they leave her. And if they just give her back her clothes and her guns and her knives...

She'll die. The Lucian Alliance has put a bounty on the heads of all of SG-1, and even if not-Cammie knows to look out for it, her luck won't hold forever. Zantia, Cameron Mitchell, it doesn't matter. She won't survive.

She's lost Cammie and now she's going to lose Teal'c and she knows there've been other things in her life -- joy and wonder and happiness and triumph -- but right now Dani looks back across the whole span of years and all she can see is loss, loss, _loss_ and it's unbearable, but she doesn't get any more choice about bearing it than Cammie-not-Cammie gets about being who she's become.

So she comes back with Teal'c to bring some of the supplies from the _tel'tak_ into the palace (there's beer) and go through what's left of the supplies in the palace to decide what Teal'c wants to take with him. With them. When they ... go.

She didn't find all the shattered scraps of her laptop when she was cleaning up the wreckage (and throwing it into the sea). Teal'c does. He doesn't say anything, but he looks at her, and she tries to pretend she doesn't know he knows what she did and disapproves. They've been so careful _(in all the days since they brought not-Cammie to their kingdom by the sea)_ not to jostle the fragile damaged treasure-chest of her mind. _(They've hoped to coax_ Cameron Mitchell _out of hiding, not bury her under further trauma, but Dani's surrendered that last forlorn hope, as she's surrendered so many others in her life.)_ She turns away, not allowing a conversation to begin. It will only end badly. _(Journeys end with lovers' meeting, the poet said. Not this time. Her lover is gone.)_

#

Dinner is a fragmented meal, though it's lavish with the fresh supplies Teal'c's brought. Dani doesn't know where not-Cammie is, and she collects a couple of bottles of beer and some bread and fruit and goes off to another room to eat alone. Eventually guilt drives her out again. Teal'c is going to leave and probably die and Cammie is already gone, and she won't let Teal'c go while there are unsaid words between them.

Their common room is brilliant with candles when she returns _(not-Cammie is nowhere in sight)_ ; Teal'c doesn't _need_ to _kel'no'reem_ any longer, but he's told her he finds it comforting and useful. She sits down opposite him on the floor -- not waiting, but slowing her breathing, allowing herself to drop into something as close to _kel'no'reem_ as a _Tau'ri_ can achieve. She doesn't like to do it _(didn't like to do it before Cammie came)_ ; she always found the stillness brought her unpleasant realizations. What she finds now isn't exactly a realization, though it's unpleasant. Losing Cammie hurt. She'd wanted to hurt the stranger left behind in Cammie's place. Cammie wouldn't have approved: it isn't kind, or right, or even fair. Not-Cammie is a fellow-victim, not her enemy.

"I was wrong," she says, when Teal'c opens his eyes. She takes a deep breath. "But she isn't coming back."

He inclines his head gravely, acknowledging both statements. Perhaps Teal'c still believes in miracles, even though he doesn't believe in gods. Certainly SG-1 pulled off a few, and witnessed more than a few.

"You mourn your comrade," he says.

"You know damned well I mourn more than that," she answers bitterly. Teal'c doesn't offer her any words of comfort. They'd be meaningless, and they both know it. The Jaffa can be consoled by thoughts of revenge, but that isn't -- can't be -- enough for her. She's always tried not to start down that path, no matter how much she's lost. She doesn't know if she can manage that this time, and if she can't, what will be left of her?

It's a question that only the future can answer. When the two of them are gone and she's alone again. This time forever.

Without mercy.

#

In the middle of the night she jerks awake at the sound of screams and automatically hits the floor and rolls under her cot before she's even really conscious. A moment later sne realizes they aren't screams. They're _howls._ They don't even sound human. It's her. Not-Cammie.

Dani hears Teal'c shout to her to get out, to flee, but it takes her at least ninety seconds to get off the floor and grab her glasses (cursing left-right-and-center the fact that they've left every single weapon back on the _tel'tak_ to keep them out of not-Cammie's reach), and by that time, she can hear the sound of a full-on _brawl_ crashing through the room.

Teal'c and not-Cammie. She grabs one of the lamps and switches it on.

Once, just a few months after Cammie got them all back together, she was lost on a planet that was part of the Headsucker Database that Teal'c thought might be a hideout of an ancient sect of Rebel Jaffa. Good old P9G-844 turned out to be the homeworld of the Sodan, all right, and they weren't interested in being _anybody's_ allies, but Cammie charmed Jolan and he taught her the Sodan fighting techniques as a preamble to killing her _(yes and no, like so many of their missions)_. And this woman doesn't remember being Cammie, but she sure as hell remembers how to fight like a Sodan Warrior. Dani remembers watching Cammie teach Teal'c the forms. What she sees now in the dim steady light of the lantern is nothing like that. This woman has no mercy, no compassion, and no intention of stopping. She's out to kill Teal'c.

_(She's out to kill both of them)_

Teal'c doesn't flinch.

Dani _would_ run -- except for the fact that there's one exit from this room and the two of them are blocking it. Not-Cammie has demolished one of the cots and yanked a length of metal tubing from the wreckage. It spins in her hands until it's nothing but a blur. A deadly one. Teal'c's already bleeding.

Dani can't demolish the other cot to even the odds, but she can use it as a shield. She picks it up and moves toward not-Cammie. Not-Cammie whirls toward her, and -- to Dani's shock; she was sure she was out of range -- hooks her improvised _bash'ak_ through the legs and yanks it out of Dani's hands.

But the instant of inattention has given Teal'c the opening he needs to tackle her. The two bodies crash to the floor -- not-Cammie is snarling obscenities in the patois of a dozen worlds, spitting, kicking, thrashing, trying to bite. At last Teal'c holds her pinned, his forearm across her throat, forcing her head up and back against the stone floor.

Dani doesn't expect what happens next. She doesn't understand why she crosses the floor to kneel at not-Cammie's head, why she strokes the sweat-darkened hair, whispering apologies, reassurances, promises, that this woman, this stranger, will have the chance to strike back at those who are her real enemies, the people who hurt her.

Slowly not-Cammie's growls of rage _(a nightmare, that's what this was; a nightmare brewed from her shattered memories, and dear god, this is how she fights when_ she's half asleep _?)_ turn to frenzied panting, and then to deep slow breaths. Teal'c goes from holding her down to simply providing her the comfort of touch, telling her that she has harmed no one, that he will permit her to harm no one unawares.

And Dani knows that when you have nothing, the little you have is infinitely precious. Not-Cammie wants to own her _self_ , her privacy, her thoughts. And her self is a shattered mirror, and her thoughts are plain to read: shame and fear at having no control over this unknown universe within her skin.

And Dani so strokes her hair and promises not-Cammie that she will have the chance to hurt those who deserve to be hurt, that she will have whatever future she wants, that those who did this to her will never have the chance to do it to her again. Or to anyone.

"Jus' a dream," Cammie says at last, her voice slurred and her eyelids heavy. "Jus' a dream."

"Indeed," Teal'c says. "Come. I shall accompany you to your bedchamber, so you may sleep without dreams."

"I think we both will," Dani says, rocking back and getting to her feet. "Because I think we're out of cots."

#

In the morning, Dani wakes up alone in the enormous bed and thinks -- for one panic-stricken moment -- that they've already left. But no. Teal'c wouldn't leave without saying goodbye. She doesn't know when she reached the decision she's made, but she knows -- now -- what she has to do. She scrambles out of bed and hurries to get dressed. It takes her a little while to find her clothes.

Teal'c's uncloaked the _tel'tac_ and brought it down next to the palace. They've obviously been making trips back and forth, loading it, and from the lack of boxes in the common room when she looks in, they must be pretty much done. Dani walks out into the main room -- they're both there. She isn't wearing her BDUs. She's wearing what she wore while she was searching for her lover. The clothing everyone wears out here.

"I want to come with you," she says.

Teal'c doesn't say anything; Dani isn't sure whether he's surprised or not. Not-Cammie looks her up and down, blue eyes coldly assessing in the morning light. "I'm going hunting. Teal'c, he can be some use. Don't know if you can."

_Let me be strong enough not to show mercy._

"You could teach me," Dani says levelly.

The woman who isn't Cammie smiles. "I could," she answers. "Let's go, then," she says, turning away and walking toward the door.

Dani falls into step behind her. There will be time enough -- soon -- to give this stranger the only gift she can. A name. Not Cammie and not Zantia, but Dani thinks she's chosen well.

Zenobia is usually glossed as "Life of Zeus" -- _"bia"_ is derived from the Greek "bios", _life_ but "Zeus" is an Indo-European word, _dyeus_ meaning "shining" or "sky", and "xenos" -- same sound, different root -- is a Greek word meaning "stranger". So she can be Xenobia, not Zenobia, and her name can mean "Strange Life", and be no more than the truth.

Strange and shining and new.

The three of them walk up the beach, toward the waiting _tel'tak_.

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**Author's Note:**

> My mind: a great place to go for a fluffy bunny good time with kittens and rainbows...
> 
> This story takes as its background the later events of "Take Back Plenty", but since right now I'm about the only one who knows what they are, that isn't much help. Okay, short version: Cammie and Dani are living together as "friends with benefits"; Dani's in love with Cammie, Dani doesn't think Cammie is in love with her.
> 
> It was hard to come up with a nice set of warnings for this, because while it is all darkity-dark with extra dark!sauce and a side order of dark!fries, it's all *aftermath*. So, you know. That's a thing.


End file.
